In case anyone's wondering why they chose Bucks, Westcott was (until the mid-90s) a secret government rocket development site with all sorts of test-stands and control rooms. The venture park now occupying the former WW2 airfield is already home to several developers of private sector rocket engines, including SABRE.
UK rocket-botherers rattle SABRE, snaffle big bucks
UK rocket botherer Reaction Engines Limited (REL) has raised £26.5m from backers in the finance and aerospace fields towards development of its Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE). SABRE has stubbornly refused to leave the lab bench and, with ground testing of the engine core due to start in 2020, the cash injection …
COMMENTS
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Friday 13th April 2018 09:26 GMT &rew
Re: Spadeadam
I did a little work out at Spadeadam about ten years ago. A huge test site, and they were doing all sorts of stuff there. We were there testing methods of sealing gas leaks in operational gas lines. Spadeadam is where they blow up gas pipes to make sure the fracture doesn't propagate faster than the depressurisation wave. It is also used to do other explosive tests, and fire suppression. It is/was an amazing place, full of pyrotechnics and the people who love them.
As for surviving structures, there were large concrete test pads and blast walls, but since it is still used for testing, and is in the middle of a military base, there won't be much that most could go and see.
I'm sure there are still the occasional booms and plumes of smoke rising through the drizzle. Icon seemed appropriate.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 16:46 GMT nematoad
That's good, but...
We see this time and again in history.
Britain develops new technology and someone else comes along, takes what we have found, commercialises it and makes a killing. Look at the Comet, the first jet airliner. A brilliant project that was damaged beyond repair by design flaws that allowed Boeing and others to take the lead and look where we are now. Then there's computing. Colossus was years ahead of everyone else, and yet where is the British computer industry today? Nowhere. I could go on and on.
It seems as if we are an inventive nation but when it comes to making money out of our discoveries and inventions we are nowhere to be seen.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 17:19 GMT steelpillow
Re: That's good, but...
This time round, both of the original 1980's HOTOL backers, B.Ae and R-R, are now back on board. There are also at least two venture capitalists (aka "investment houses") in the new deal. So Boeing and DARPA have some stiff competition right from the word go.
As for jet airliners, the German company Blohm & Voss had a project lined up for the moment WWII ended - if it had gone the other way they'd have been a decade ahead of the 707.
But I do agree about computers - great names like Mullard, Ferranti, Marconi and ICL should not have been squashed into the ground.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 17:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: That's good, but...
But I do agree about computers - great names like Mullard, Ferranti, Marconi and ICL should not have been squashed into the ground.
Cough cough ARM cough cough. Ok, they're owned by Softbank these days, but otherwise it's an all British affair.
Saw a Ferranti badge PC clone once, long ago. Ferranti and Marconi got absorbed into what's now BAE.
On the quiet Britain does very well in other areas - the overall size of the aviation industry is larger now than it was in its "heyday" back in the 50s and 60s. We make the valuable bits, rather than the whole aircraft.
I also like to think of Britain as having the most advanced and successful space policy of any nation. Having dabbled briefly with developing a launcher, we quickly gave that away to the French (who have done very well with Ariane), forgot all about manned flight and settled down to the highly profitable business of make commercial satellites. The government investment made in Portsmouth and Stevenage back in the early 1980s to build satellites has got to count as one of the most cost effective space programs by any government anywhere. OK, in no way was it planned like that, but the end result has been very lucrative.
I hope Skylon / Reaction Engines meet with success, both technically and commercially. Turning up late to the launcher business, even if only as a founding member of a multi-country-multi-company partnership, with a fully resuable, fill-er-up-and-go space plane would be deeply satisfying.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 19:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Satellites
The business in Stevenage, Pompey and even Guildford might be good at the moment but come a couple of years time I expect we will be hearing of layoffs all round. European customers will by from within the EU due to a dictat from Brussels. All part of the punishment that the EU will give us for the next 30 years because of our temerity to reject the EU Hegemony.
Enjoy it while you can people.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 20:59 GMT Paul Crawford
Re: Satellites
The main "punishment" the UK will get is a result of stupid politicians and those who voted from them. You don't need to punish someone who is beating themselves so effectively.
But otherwise you probably are right in terms of future job losses, just not in terms of the real reason.
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Friday 13th April 2018 07:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Satellites
The business in Stevenage, Pompey and even Guildford might be good at the moment but come a couple of years time I expect we will be hearing of layoffs all round. European customers will by from within the EU due to a dictat from Brussels. All part of the punishment that the EU will give us for the next 30 years because of our temerity to reject the EU Hegemony.
It doesn't work that way. It takes a very long time to setup facilities of that sort (people are the problem, they're hard to recruit), I seriously doubt Airbus would even begin to think about closing them down. The EU might seek to impose some punitive taxation, but commercial realities for Airbus are likely to force some real-politik thinking in the French and German governments.
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Monday 16th April 2018 09:57 GMT Lotaresco
Re: That's good, but...
" Mullard, Ferranti, Marconi and ICL should not have been squashed into the ground"
Mulllard - the investors sold all their shares to Philips in 1927
Marconi - merged with BAe
Ferranti - collapsed after an enormous management cock up of buying a pig in a poke
ICL - sold off to Fujitsu by a government too bone idle to work out what else to do with the company
Only ICL was "squashed into the ground" in that list.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 17:22 GMT DNTP
Re: That's good, but...
SABRE has already been stolen from you guys and successfully commercialized for use by one of the most famous companies in Mexico. I am of course referring to SQUAD and their Kerbal Space Program SABRE knockoff, the RAPIER (Reactive Alternate Propellant Intelligent Engine for Rockets). Then it was ripped off again by myself, personally, in the USA, to produce the JASPRE (Joint Alternate-Sourced Propellant Rocket Engine) for my KSP mod.
Sorry for stealing your stuff Britain, I didn't mean to hurt you that much, if you're in Boston I'll buy you a coke.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 19:47 GMT Daggerchild
Re: That's good, but...
Fiver on Britain cracking the engineering problems, Russia suddenly flying a prototype (that explodes) then pretending they didn't, US Military stealing it, and pretending they aren't, US Business launching a patent broadside to capture it, stopping anyone making it, whereupon China starts mass producing it.
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Friday 13th April 2018 00:31 GMT Lars
Re: That's good, but...
"I could go on and on".
I know you will go on and on for the rest of your life.
But we would have computers and jet airliners totally regardless of England, civilization did not start in Britain, hopefully it will not end there either.
I would like to help you but I am afraid you are beyond help.
I have hope in the new generation of Brits who understand that innovations are, and were, made all over the world, not only in Britain. Companies come and go, errors are made and inventions tend to go where there is capital for the purpose.
Perhaps it would help you if you manged to come to the conclusion that Britain is part of the world and not the whole world.
And please do not pollute the minds of your children.
I give you some credit, however, for writing "an inventive nation" and not the "most world leading inventive nation in human history" or something worse.
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Friday 13th April 2018 12:06 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: That's good, but...
we would have computers and jet airliners totally regardless of England
That wasn't the point he was trying to make. His point was "we have all these good ideas and then totally fail to capitalise them".
More of a moan about the UK's lamentable socio-political setup than a boast about "we invented all the stuffs".
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Saturday 14th April 2018 09:53 GMT nematoad
Re: That's good, but...
@ Lars
It would appear as if someone not only got out of bed on the wrong side but also, like Worzel Gummige, forgot to put on their thinking head.
An ad hominem attack is no answer to the points I was trying to make. What you seem to have failed to grasp is that I was not claiming that Britain is solely responsible for all the great discoveries, inventions and developments in the world. The point of my post was that the UK is very good at coming up with clever new ideas but pitifully poor at turning them into a source of revenue.
As for the state of my children's minds that is irrelevant. They are long grown up and now responsible for the moulding of their own children's characters and minds.
You may gather from the above that I am annoyed at the tone of your reply, and you would be right. When I was at University I was trained to attack the other person's ideas not them. It seems as if this idea has somehow passed you by.
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Friday 13th April 2018 02:18 GMT Kernel
Re: That's good, but...
"Then there's computing. Colossus was years ahead of everyone else, and yet where is the British computer industry today?"
Arguably one of the most important light bulb moments leading to modern computing was down to Lyons and their extensive chain of tea shops.
They realized that computers could not only work on straight maths problems, but could also be used to assist with solving business problems, like how do you bake and distribute fresh cakes and scones nationally, on a daily basis, with minimum wastage and lost orders.
The Leo series of computers they designed and built to work on this and Lyon's other general business processes (payroll, accounting, etc) were quite innovative for their time and it's unfortunate that the initial lead this gave the UK in commercial computing was never followed up with adequate government encouragement.
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Friday 13th April 2018 16:17 GMT Lars
Re: That's good, but...
"Colossus was years ahead of everyone else".
No it wasn't, you find this about the Colossus:
"Colossus was a set of computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943–1945 to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform Boolean and counting operations. Colossus is thus regarded[2] as the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer, although it was programmed by switches and plugs and not by a stored program.".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
But then you also find Konrad Zuse:
"The Z3 was an electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse. It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer.[1] The Z3 was built with 2,000 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz.[2] Program code[3] and constant data were stored on punched film.
The Z3 was completed in Berlin in 1941.
Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Konrad Zuse is often regarded as the inventor of the computer."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse
Now compare the pictures and think again, who was years ahead.
What I don't know is if the Germans are moaning as much as you and telling porkies because, after all, the German computer industry isn't that stellar either.
See there is a world outside Britain.
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Thursday 12th April 2018 17:33 GMT John Smith 19
"may be a while before Gyimah will see spacecraft powered by REL’s technology blasting off"
Not as long you might think.
AFAIK the existing money gets them through the ground test phase.
This money (and note the 2 VC companies who did not say how much they have put in) may be enough to get them the "Flight Test Vehicle" built. It's initial goal is to fly the test engine through the air and past the air breathing to rocket transition. The last major difference between SABRE and a conventional jet or rocket engine. It only needs to run long enough to reach steady state. Say 10secs after transition, before engine shut down and a glide back to ground.
BTW AIUI this would make the FTV the first reusable hypersonic test vehicle since the X-15.
Now if they designed suitable "hooks" into the structure there could be several customers who would like to fly experiments on such a vehicle. Obviously REL's needs come first and it may not be possible but it's an intriguing idea. If there was an extra X Kg available (or could be made available if RELs instrumentation was removed perhaps).....
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Thursday 12th April 2018 19:41 GMT John 98
jw@resthaven.org.uk
Agreed you are carrying some extra engine up, but you've cut the oxidant load by at least 20%. I don't pretend to know much, but it sounds a good trade off. And if you only need one engine instead of three (one stage to orbit), I imagine that's good too (even if said engine is a complex beast).
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Thursday 12th April 2018 21:51 GMT John Smith 19
"but you've cut the oxidant load by at least 20%."
REL estimate that an all rocket Skylon would carry 100 tonnes more LOX (it's already carrying about 160 tonnes)
Basically that shifts the whole balance.
Too much weight, too little Isp --> mandatory feather weight structures --> impossible to make orbit.
Again it's not just "Not carrying the O2" it's Isp==3000secs. not 380sec (the SSME at takeoff)
It's an old cliche that "The rocket equation is steep." That high Isp lasts long enough to make all the difference
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Thursday 12th April 2018 21:45 GMT John Smith 19
Getting to Mach 5 is 20% of the way to orbital speed.
Wow, you're powers of observation are astounding.
Actually it's more like 21% but what you've missed is that during that period it's average Isp is 6.6x that of the best available viable rocket propellant (not the classic but unworkable LH2/LF2/Lithium)
In addition to the oxidizer coming from the air its also pushing the other 80% inert reaction mass out the back IE the N2. And in this game more mass --> more momentum.
That Isp buys you the luxury of not needing paper thin tank walls (which is what VTOL SSTO usually comes down to) and the wings handle most of the gravity losses since the vehicle is always more or less horizontal from takeoff.
So you get a design that a) Needs tough but within the SoA structural fractions (not unobtanium) b) Robust to survive multiple uses from full reentry with full payload (which killed the idea of a reusable F9 US) and c) Does so with a payload fraction like that of a normal TSTO ELV, historically impossible for VTOL SSTO's, and more so for rocket only HTOL vehicles.
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Friday 13th April 2018 11:26 GMT hammarbtyp
Re: Big wup
Getting to Mach 5 is 20% of the way to orbital speed. For the other 80% you're going to be dragging the air breathing part of the engine as so much dead weight. This is just another Big Idea project, like cargo airships, that looks sexy but doesn't add up.
Well done sir in showing on your back of a fag packet calculation, something that the combined engineering resources of the western world has failed to consider <SARCASM>
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Thursday 12th April 2018 21:59 GMT John Smith 19
Re: ground test
That's called a "Pulse jet."
It's not anywhere close to SABRE's cycle.
One of the key design drivers for SABRE was that it must generate thrust from 0 Km/h.
No catapults (which the V1 used). No sleds. No high pressure gas injection.
BTW A pulse jets thermal efficiency is pretty poor. IOW it's fuel consumption is quite high.
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Friday 13th April 2018 08:11 GMT AdamT
Re: OK, i'll ask.
I met some of the Reaction Engines team at a conference a few years ago and I did ask that. I can't quite remember the precise reason but I think it is so that there is some down vector to the thrust whilst the air flow is still in line with the fuselage. Perhaps this compensates a bit for the smallish wings? Once you are out the atmosphere then all that matters is that you can align the thrust vector with the centre of mass.
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Friday 13th April 2018 08:12 GMT Milton
Good news for once
Hugely encouraging news for a nice change! REL, with the Sabre concept, are talking and doing real science, real engineering, with real goals, and right now offer arguably the world's most practically realistic option for SSTO spaceplanes.
It has saddened me that Virgin's pitiful nonsense in the desert has earned so much publciity and investment over the years, when it is little better than "space flight" stunting for rich fools, while REL have had to struggle in the shadows doing the real work.
Hopefully that changes. While Branson's empty marketing bollocks is aimed at selling "Ooh look I'm a Astronaut" merit badges to egotistical twerps (perhaps the same kind of idiots whose frozen corpses decorate the slopes of Everest)—and with luck will never get far enough to start killing punters, whatever the benefits to the gene pool—the money put into REL has a strong, totally plausible probability of flights to orbit reaching commercial airline standards of safety and reliability.
I know people once said the same about Shuttle, but let's be honest, that was a fatally compromised POS, kludged-together firework, before it ever left the ground. The original designs had promise, but after politicians had wreaked their budgetary havoc and Nasa management played their lethal games ... a dreadful and tragic waste of time, money and lives.
The Sabre engine is not just a great concept, it's showing every sign that it could actually work. If you don't get excited at the thought of regular, affordable flights to orbit—able to operate from airports—there's always the option of a four-hour trip from Heathrow to Sydney. Even Economy might be tolerable ....
I have no connection with REL, but wholheartedly recommend anyone interested to go see their website and understand the tech. It's impressive stuff. Read before you dismiss it as just more pie-in-the-sky. They might actually pull this off.
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Friday 13th April 2018 09:26 GMT John Smith 19
"Branson's empty marketing bollocks is aimed at selling "Ooh look I'm a Astronaut""
Actually not even that.
They are not "Astronauts," that's the crew.
They are "Spaceflight participants"
While you may despise them the fact remains quite a lot of people put serious money down for tickets for this.
I'd have said Skylon could be described as the next logical step up. If $500k gets you sub-orbital what's full orbital worth?
Which I'm pretty sure the BO (Beardie One) would have been pretty enthusiastic about.
Sadly, reading between the lines, any contacts between REL and VG have not gone well.